When Facebook launched on February 4, 2004, nobody realized it will be as much of a success as it did. In just 15 years a small social network reserved for Harvard College students grew to become the largest social platform in history. With over 2.45 billion monthly active users it became a household name in almost all countries. Primarily in the U.S.

But is Facebook losing its popularity?

 

 

 

 

A study performed by Edison research revealed that Facebook usage among U.S citizens dropped for the first time since 2008. It went from 67% in 2017 to 62% in 2018 and then again to 61% in 2019.

This news caught many off guard. Facebook saw a constant rise in usage since 2008 and it was expected to grow in 2018 as well. But, at least in the U.S, it didn't. Experts are still not sure why but many expressed their opinions ranging from increased distrust in the company to political polarization and discord becoming more pronounced.

However, this article is not about that kind of analysis. It's meant to answer one simple question:

 

Is Facebook still a worthwhile marketing tool for businesses?

 

 

Well, the short answer is 'Yes'. Official data for Q3 of 2019 indicate that the global number of monthly active users increased by as much as 8% compared to 2018. Furthermore, the number of daily active users increased by a staggering 9%. As much as some people would like to proclaim the death of Facebook it’s simply not realistic to expect its influence to decrease in the upcoming years.

 

Besides, Facebook’s importance in the business world has only increased in the past few years with the introduction and development of the Facebook marketplace. In 2016 alone there were 60 million business pages on the platform alone. The experts are expecting that number to be even higher today. It became a crucial tool for gathering customer insights. Especially considering the user’s ability to rate and post reviews from their experiences. One source stated back in 2012 that every 60 seconds, Facebook users post 510,000 comments. That number is probably far, far greater today. That’s a lot of material for an in-depth market analysis but also a huge danger for a brand’s reputation. Managing it on Facebook is still very necessary for any business that hopes to grow in the future. And it's necessary to acquire that data in some way.

 

How to extract data from Facebook?

 

 

Well, Facebook does allow some developers to use an API in their apps for getting reviews but it's limited and difficult to use. And it's a big problem for those who want reviews from more platforms than just Facebook. Especially if they need to have them in one place. We created justLikeAPI precisely for solving problems like that in an easy and reliable way. It enables businesses to bypass web-scrapping obstacles (like Captcha). Our team provides its users with a great deal of support in implementing the service. There is even an option for using our development team for creating the necessary IT infrastructure. Since the number of reviews seems to be growing, it's a must-have tool for fetching and working with reviews from Facebook or even responding to them.

 

Our predictions

 

Despite some indications that Facebook is losing steam in the U.S, it will probably grow in global importance in the following years. Even if users start to gravitate toward other platforms for reviews, Facebook will still be a marketing force to reckon with. It still has the largest (and growing!) userbase of any social media company. It continuously expands its services, especially for businesses. Over the years, it became a go-to social media platform for customers and suppliers alike. Having a reliable service for scraping reviews from it will likely become a necessity.

Do you agree? Let us know in the comments!